A Different Kind of Storm
by Itzika
Summary: Even before Az took over, the O.Z. wasn't always peaceful. Why should that change now?
1. Two Weeks Later

"My name isn't Glitch

Title: A Different Kind of Storm

Chapter Title: Two Weeks Later

Rating: PG-13 because that's the highest it'll ever go.

Story summary: Even before Az took over, things in the O.Z. weren't always peaceful. Why would that change now?

Chapter summary: The war with Az left a lot of loose ends.

Word count: 3200

Warnings: I have a tendency to leave no one normal. I indulge that tendency fully in this story. Also warnings for SLASH (duh), angst (as readers of "One in a Thousand" know), some Queen-bashing and Ambrose-bashing (they're great… sometimes, but they just don't look too nice for a while), and death and violence (in future chapters).

Disclaimer: Please tell me you don't honestly think I own Tin Man… sighs in relief Good, I'm dealing with sensible people here.

Characters, pairings: The main pairing will be Cain/Glitch, obviously, but the whole cast will feature, and most of them will end up in couples. More on that at the end (because it's long and I don't want to delay the story any more).

A/N: This is the first chapter of the fic from whose universe "One in a Thousand" comes. People who hated me for ending that story with such angst, sorry; "One in a Thousand" took place a couple chapters in, so this is backing up a little.

Here we go! Feedback is much appreciated!

* * *

"My name isn't Glitch. It's Ambrose."

The voice that slipped through his lips wasn't his. The words weren't anything he'd ever thought of or even wanted to speak. The brain-in-a-box was speaking through him, telling what to do to shut down his mutated machine—

_His _mutated machine.

That had slipped into his mind without any intent, but it was so _true._ The machine in front of them—hell, the machine it was based off of—wasn't his. It belonged to the brain-in-a-box that called itself Ambrose and wouldn't even respond to Glitch except to correct people.

And now that brain-in-a-box was taking over his head.

When the scientists came in and shoved Raw away and grabbed Glitch, he rejoiced silently. The brain-in-a-box wasn't in his head anymore. Or so he thought, until the little viewer put his hand on Glitch's head and started telling them Ambrose's thoughts.

Ambrose, the stupid brain-in-a-box that didn't belong in Glitch's head… It was there, and it would stay. It was in control. It told Cain—_Cain—_to call him Ambrose, and not Glitch, and Cain obeyed, shattering any hope Glitch might still have had that he and Ambrose could be the same person.

When he woke up, it was _him._ He looked at Cain through the reset-induced confusion and realized that he had opened his own eyes. Him, not Ambrose. Cain said "Good morning, sweetheart," and Glitch had to remind himself that the man was only joking as the reset set itself back to normal. They brought him back to the brain-in-a-box, and he rejected the connection, passing of his inability to think as typical Glitch syndrome. There was a moment of triumph when Cain took out his gun before Ambrose reacted, shoving Glitch out of the way so he could tell them how to reverse the machine.

And he had never let Glitch speak since.

Ambrose regarded Glitch as a half, something which was created as a result of circumstances which should have been avoided. Why should Ambrose respect Glitch's right to live? Ambrose had the full set of memories. Ambrose had his job as the Queen's advisor.

Ambrose didn't give a damn about Wyatt Cain.

* * *

"I may have saved you from hypothermia, but this saved your life."

It took several days before Cain realized there was a third near-death experience that hadn't been explained away.

He had almost drowned.

Zero had shot him, he had fallen out the window, _he had almost drowned,_ and_ then_ Glitch had found him in the ice and brought him back to the wagon and warmed him up. The toy horse had saved him from the bullet, and Glitch had saved him from the ice, but who or what had saved him from the fall and the water?

After days of trying to figure it out, Cain began to have dreams about the experience.

The fall had left bruises and cuts all over his body from breaking through the ice. He knew that much, and the injuries had been completely healed by the time they stopped Azkadellia… but it took a while longer to make sense of the drowning experience. According to his dreams, which were so real he could taste the water in his mouth, he had actually stopped breathing and begun swimming up to the surface. Covered in injuries and literally drowned, he had spat out all the water in his lungs and passed out.

Then… he would have survived the hypothermia and the bullet, too? That didn't sit right with him. First, it meant that Glitch's (and the toy horse's) acts of heroism were utterly pointless; and second, it just didn't feel true. He spent days trying to figure it out without getting anywhere, before finally giving it up as a problem that couldn't be solved. It was best to get his mind off it. He had other things to worry about.

Like how Ambrose had gotten back inside Glitch, for example.

* * *

"You must be re-introduced to the O.Z. as a princess on your birthday."

DG had been paying minimal attention at best until her mother let _that_ little secret out. "WHAT?" she half-shrieked. "But my birthday's in less than two months, and—and I still barely remember _anything!_"

"Do not worry, DG," the Queen told her, running a hand down her youngest daughter's face. All the beautiful color had fled when DG had learned of her latest duty. "I can teach you everything you need to know. I'm sure your memories will return in time." They couldn't return soon enough, she thought privately.

"Yeah," DG said. "Yeah, because everything _always _works out _so well,_ right?" The Queen did not miss the sarcasm flooding her daughter's voice.

"It will," the Queen told her calmly. "Nothing will go wrong. No one will interfere." Not the witch; not even Azkadellia, who still wouldn't go outside.

"Why do I have to do this, anyway?" DG's voice took on a whining tone, and the Queen's face turned stern.

"You are a _princess._ You are the assurance to the people that the country will not fall into anarchy should anything happen to your father and me. Besides… I thought it would be a good time to explain the events of the past fifteen years… and Azkadellia's forgiveness."

She knew that DG wouldn't refuse after that, and she was not disappointed. "All right," her daughter said, chin suddenly set, "what do I need to know?"

The Queen smiled a small, triumphant smile and began explaining. "First, you must understand…"

* * *

Tutor Kyros Dram had been offered an official pardon. He had been given a place to live out his remaining years _quietly,_ without worrying after little girls or trying to play double agent. So he was _very_ surprised to hear a knock on his door one night and open it to find a patrol of Tin Men waiting to arrest him.

"Is there a problem, officers?" Kyros asked, watching their faces in the dim light.

"Would you mind coming with us, sir?" the commander of the unit asked him.

"Would you mind telling me what the problem is?" Kyros returned.

"We just need to ask you some questions," the commander assured him.

But it was nothing like that. Kyros had been sure that habeas corpus was assured once the Queen and her husband had retaken the throne, but he had been thrown in jail without a trial or even learning the charge. He gathered, from noticing the people in the same block he was in, that he had been arrested for treason.

* * *

The pages had yellowed with time, but the writing was still perfectly legible. There was the _darkened sky_ and the _pillar of green light_ that he hadn't understood at all… There was the shortest entry of them all, just three words—_DG lets go—_that he hadn't understood until it was too late… There was the sketch of the odd pink thing in the tub of green that had turned out to be Ambrose's brain, impossible to put back… There was the page of angry chicken-scratch that even now, even knowing what it said, he still couldn't read…

And there was the first entry that consisted of words that described a knowing, not a seeing. _The first will be like her, but the second will be like me…_ That entry, the one that he had stared at for so long, uncomprehending, that he now understood and wished he didn't… Now he picked up the new leather-bound journal from his side table and opened it to the first sight he'd risked recording or even allowing to reach his eyes in almost fifteen years… _She is staring at her sketchbook, confused as I have ever seen her, and there is a drawing in her sketchbook of a boy falling. She knows the building behind him, and she knows she knows him, but she can't place his face. Her hand moves as though in a trance, and corrects a line here, darkens a stroke there… The picture is perfect as a picture, but she knows it is not quite accurate._

In fifteen years, the sights had piled up behind his eyes, pressing up against one another. No entry from his old book was so detailed. Fifteen years ago he would never have known what the girl he saw knew. Of course, fifteen years ago, his entry would have had more about what her _face_ looked like. That would have been helpful.

But in fifteen years, his eyes had grown starved for seeing, his mind starved for knowing. He had pushed it all away, and now he couldn't forget any of it, even the many things he had neglected to put down on paper.

The door opened, and a beautiful woman with lavender eyes came in. "Ahamo?" Lemuela asked as she closed the door. "What are you doing?"

Ahamo blinked, and he was again staring at his journals. In half a second he had flipped them shut and shoved them behind the table. He grabbed a book that he had set on the side table for that purpose just as the door really did open.

"Ahamo?" Lemuela asked as she closed the door. "What are you doing?"

Ahamo looked over from the book, _Slippers and Slippers,_ to his beautiful wife. "Just reading," he told her. "I will never know all your legends."

Lemuela smiled, stepping up to her husband and looking over his shoulder at the book. "You already know that one," she pointed out.

Ahamo smiled back easily. "I've given up on knowing them all," he replied. "It's a hopeless case. I'll stick with reading the ones I like, see how far that gets me."

Lemuela laughed her light, appreciative golden laugh, and Ahamo's smile became instantly more genuine.

* * *

She stared at her sketchbook, confused. There was a drawing in her sketchbook of a boy falling. She knew the building behind him, and she knew she knew the boy, but she couldn't place his face. Her hand moved as though in a trance and corrected a line here, darkened a stroke there… The picture was perfect as a picture, but she knew it wasn't quite accurate.

It was only when she had finished filling in the details that she realized just how accurate the picture was.

There was a moon in a crosshatched night sky, exactly half full; and a clock tower in the city beyond showed 10:00. DG stared at the picture for a long moment, too stunned to speak.

DG tore the sketch carefully out of her book and tacked it up on the wall by her other recent drawings. Stepping back to look at them, she realized that none of them featured her dreams. When was the last time she had drawn something other than her dreams? She couldn't remember; she couldn't even remember drawing any of these. But there they were: pictures of fights, pictures of strangers, and one picture of Cain that almost scared DG from the sheer intensity of the emotion on his face. And now this new picture joined them, a testament to the tragedy that still existed in the O.Z.

Looking at the pictures hurt her eyes, like staring into the sun for too long. Giving up, she turned away and started getting ready for bed.

* * *

She never goes outside anymore. The light still hurts her eyes, for one thing, and for another, she knows no one wants to have to look at her. They all want to pretend that she doesn't exist. They want her to go away and never come back. So she stays inside, and reads, and wonders what will happen now.

In some ways she wishes DG had never come back. Things were simpler without her sister. She still doesn't care all that much what Lemuela thinks—she never cared what Lemuela thought—but Ahamo matters to her again, and DG matters even more. It hurts to see her little sister go through life as though in a daze, recognizing everything but remembering nothing. It hurts to visit her sister in her room and see the drawings on the walls, many of which she recognizes from the dreams the two used to share. She cut the connection when DG let go, and she hasn't forged it again since. Sometimes she wants to, but looking at DG always reminds her why she doesn't want her little sister in her head.

She doesn't have a lot of time. She knows that. It won't be long before she starts shaking, before the breaths she spends hours taking become truly necessary. She doesn't know what she'll do when that happens; she doesn't know if she'll be able to do what she knows she must.

But she has a little time until then, a few more days to spend with her sister, and her father, and the woman she no longer calls 'mother.'

* * *

There is cold sweat running down his skin, almost freezing where it touches the metal around him. His head fell forward days ago, when he lost the strength and the will to hold it up meaninglessly, and now the only movement he makes is to breathe.

In and out. In and out. It's torture to drag air through his tired throat, and he knows the irony of the situation is that these breaths take more energy than they give. But he keeps going, because he doesn't know any other way to count the time. There's no other way to know how much longer he has before he dies.

A movement outside makes him jerk his head up and stare at the woman in front of him. He must be delirious, he knows, because she can't be here; it's impossible; he must be seeing things, because she _can't_ be here; she just _can't…_

"Hello, _Líng,_" she whispers, and he's sure he's making it up, because there's no way he could hear something that quiet from in here…

But a moment later it doesn't matter whether she was real or not, because she's gone, and he's just realizing that he's stopped breathing.

* * *

The city is spread out below him like a blanket, and he stands on a balcony above it all, wondering what would happen if he jumped.

There's no point in wondering, really—he _knows_ what would happen; he would fall from the balcony until there was no way he wasn't about to die, and then he would stop falling. There's no getting around that fact; he can't throw himself to his death. It's ironic, really, considering why that is.

He remembers the day when his mother died—the screams torn from her throat, the hollow _thump_ as her cold body hit the floor. He remembers deep black eyes staring into his and a cold voice telling him, _Run._

He remembers the last time he met those eyes, the time when they turned bright turquoise and his turned ice blue. He remembers everything he saw as those two impossible gazes met. He remembers how, strangely, it became considerably harder to hate the man after that.

His mother would never have condoned such thoughts in her son. She would have sat him down and treated him to a lecture of why the man was their enemy—because he was _evil—_and why he _had_ to hate him—because he was _evil._ Thirteen annuals ago, he had listened and believed, but now, if his mother told him such things, he would ask _why._ He knew what his mother would say to that—because the man was a parasite. And he would ask if that made his father a parasite too, and she would freeze, and her face would turn white, and she would slap him hard and tell him _never_ to say such things again.

He wonders if she ever met an impossible gaze, if she ever learned that what had happened to her was nothing at all compared to what _might_ have happened. He doubts it. His mother never wavered in her belief that the man and everyone like him were pure evil.

But he's seen Ambrose. He knows that the man made the right decision.

Why does that change things so much?

Still lost in thought, he glances down and sees the city below him. Just as he has done every day for the past week and a half, he turns away from the railing and goes back inside.

* * *

Her eyes are jade green, staring at the wood. It started out thin, and by now it's so rotted that if she just put out her foot it would snap. Somehow, the fragility makes her think that it will last that much longer.

The air around her is cool and welcoming. She stretches, reaching her fingers toward the sky. All it would take is a small jump and a quick thought, and she would join the clouds chasing each other across the deep blue sky. A deep breath of the cool autumn air excites her, and she rises up until her toes barely make contact with the earth's surface. It takes a long moment to relax with the scents of grass and wind flying into her nose, inviting her to just leave the ground for a moment. Finally, though, she comes to her senses and lowers herself to the ground.

Looking around, she sees the box that made her life hell years ago. She couldn't stand to look at it then; it reminded her every time she accidentally glimpsed it of the person she had lost to its duplicate. Now she can stand to look. She can see the person inside, and it makes her want to laugh. Jade green eyes burn brighter and brighter as she approaches the box and looks through the glass.

Eerie turquoise eyes meet hers and widen in shock. She smiles to see that the man recognizes her after all this time.

"Hello, _Líng,_" she whispers, shooing her voice through the box so it reaches his ears. She hears the sound of his breathing stop in shock, and she steps away.

A few feet away she decides to ignore common sense and just jump into the air.

* * *

It was always hard to focus on what he could see with his eyes and ignore everything pouring in from around him, everything he could feel from the Collective. The difficulty tripled when he tried to speak to someone. The most he could ever force out were a few words. _Collective,_ their language was so _ambiguous_. It was impossible to tell what they were saying half the time. Sometimes he thought that they could understand him better than he could them.

When he was a child, he hadn't even bothered to speak, instead choosing to immerse himself in the sensations of others through his own Sense and the Collective. He knew, when Lylo asked him to protect Kalm, that it was because of that tendency. Lylo didn't want Kalm to have to strain his focus and his Sense to pay attention and answer questions, especially not with the scientists shocking him.

The feelings his Sense conveyed to him now were infinitely more interesting—human feelings always were—and he once again had to fight the urge to stop responding and just remain in his Sense. He wouldn't even need the Collective to hold his attention now, surrounded as he was by such _interesting_ people.

* * *

A/N: Clarifying details:

The Collective is the accumulated Senses and knowledge of all viewers. (Yes, I totally made it up. No, you did not miss something crucial.) Viewers invoke the Collective as their god. (The canon reference to "gods" gives me license to make up all sorts, so you will see other gods in this fic.)

Sorry, I'm not naming the anonymous chapters. I think you can guess most or all of them, though.

In case it wasn't clear enough, the Queen's name is now Lemuela.

I said I would expand on the "Pairings" note above, so here's the rest:

When I first started this story, the plan was Cain/Glitch, Az/Zero, DG/Jeb, and Lemuela/Ahamo (wow, a canon pairing—what a revolutionary idea!). Then the story started mutating on me, and now Zero has become a turning point. The gist of it is, it will either be Az/Zero, or it will be Zero/Jeb. If it's Zero/Jeb, then it becomes either Az/DG or Az/OC and DG/OC. (No matter what, though, it's going to be Cain/Glitch; there's no getting around that.) I'm fine with any of those options (please don't flame me for that—I consider sisterly bonds after twenty years to be void enough for a relationship, and I have a plan for Jeb/Zero, and for Az/Zero and DG/Jeb), so it falls to you the readers. I need your help deciding on the ships. (This next bit is not supposed to sound like a threat, so please forgive me if it does—) I need to know what the pairings will be so I can start setting them up. It will be very hard to write any more of this story if I don't know what the pairings are, so _please,_ comment, review, and give me a suggestion. (Or hey, just give me a suggestion. I'm fine with that, so long as I can keep writing. I'd _prefer_ a comment, but I realize that most or all of you have lives away from the computer, too.)

Feedback (and votes) are much appreciated!

-Itzika


	2. Vampires are Real?

Ambrose looked himself over in the mirror, straightening his jacket and the tunic shirt he wore underneath it

Title: A Different Kind of Storm

Chapter Title: Vampires are Real?

Rating: PG-13 for blood and death

Story summary: Even before Az took over, things in the O.Z. weren't always peaceful. Why would that change now?

Chapter summary: The O.Z. is back in business. Not everybody's too happy about that.

Word count: 3400

Warnings: Things are getting a little AU here. As in, nobody's normal, which I believe I mentioned before but I'm saying again anyway. Also warnings for SLASH, angst, Ambrose-bashing and some Queen-bashing, and death, blood and violence.

Disclaimer: How many times must I say that I don't own Tin Man?

Characters, pairings: Cain/Glitch, Queen/Ahamo (a canon pairing… wow), future Jeb/Zero and Az/DG (please see the Author's Note), all characters present (Zero's not in this chapter, though…)

A/N: Okay, I left it up in the air, and it came down on the slash side. This is now a Jeb/Zero, Az/DG story in addition to Cain/Glitch. I realize, though, that the people who objected to these pairings were very passionate, and as I do like the other pairings, too, I'm leaving it up in the air again. Not what pairings _this_ story will have, but whether I'll just write one version, or I'll go back after a little while and write a second version with the pairings Cain/Glitch, Az/Zero, DG/Jeb. (I'm rather fond of that option, actually; but it's a lot more work—which I don't like—so if no one would read it, I won't write it.) So if you want me to do that, please tell me.

Feedback is appreciated!

* * *

Ambrose looked himself over in the mirror, straightening his jacket and the tunic shirt he wore underneath it. For the first time in many annuals, he had a body, and just that simple fact was enough to make him vain. The problem with being vain, however, was that it tended to go hand in hand with being critical. As Ambrose looked in the mirror, he only saw things he needed to fix.

He had finally started to get twelve annuals' worth of oil and dirt out of his hair—it was incredibly frustrating to try to wash his hair without getting any soap in that cursed zipper, which was doubtless the reason the half-a-man had never bothered to attempt it—but the dratted dreadlocks appeared to be permanent **(1)**. His skin was paler than he remembered; he had a few theories as to why, none of which he thought were feasible. The half hadn't remembered to eat often enough, and Ambrose's frame was now too thin for the clothes that he had recovered from his old vacation home. The coat hung oddly off his shoulders and the shirt was too baggy.

Then there was the cursed zipper itself. Ambrose ran his fingers over the metal irritably. There had to be a way to get rid of this; there was no point to keeping it, since his physical brain could never be put back. He wondered if there was a way to stop the decay the brain was undergoing; he didn't really want to know what would happen to him if the brain itself were to die completely.

_Really? I'd _love_ to find out,_ a small voice in his head grumbled. Ambrose shoved the half to the back of his mind. 'Glitch' had been very vocal about his belief that he had a right to live; Ambrose, on the other hand, was confident in his belief that the half-a-man was an accident that had occurred as a result of simple survival instinct, and would fade away in time once it realized it was no longer needed.

Satisfied with his appearance at last, Ambrose headed for the door. He would be starting his job as engineer/inventor today, before he returned to being advisor in another week.

Only a few steps outside his door, Ambrose ran into Wyatt Cain.

"Guardsman Cain," Ambrose said formally, an empty social smile on his face as he nodded in acknowledgement.

"You know, I didn't actually say yes," Cain replied coolly. He didn't even bother with false smiles; he met Ambrose's dark eyes with cold blue ones.

"_Yet,_" Ambrose corrected. "You didn't say yes _yet._ No one refuses the Queen anything, especially not when she's handing them such an opportunity."

Cain ignored him. "Headed to your job?"

"Yes. Which reminds me, I should be going." Ambrose began walking past the other man. "Good day." The Queen would not have approved of Ambrose's brush-off of Cain, but at this particular moment Ambrose couldn't bring himself to care. Cain had an unnatural fixation with that half-a-man, and Ambrose intended to stop it **(2)**.

Cain watched Ambrose walk away, anger simmering in his veins. That was Ambrose he'd been talking to, but he knew Glitch was still in there somewhere. Glitch had been the one to wake up, the one who had responded when Cain called him "sweetheart." Ambrose was the invader, the one who was destroying Glitch, the one Cain would do anything to stop.

* * *

Ahamo left his room while his wife was getting ready for the day and headed down the hall to their youngest daughter's room.

It felt strange to be dressed for the palace again. Functional clothes designed for easy, silent movement had been the norm for so long he had forgotten what crisp shirts and formal jackets and slacks felt like. He could only imagine what it must feel like to DG to be wearing princess gowns again.

He had arrived at DG's room. He knocked sharply twice on the wood of the door.

"Enter," DG called. Ahamo opened the door and stepped in.

DG was dressed in a long wine-red gown of fine, rich silk, embroidered with intricate gold designs and accented by a thin gold rope belt. At the moment, she was sifting through the jewelry box Lemuela had given her, expression awed.

"Hard decision?" Ahamo asked teasingly. DG nodded mutely.

Ahamo turned to look at the rest of the room. The bed was unmade; apparently DG had inherited Ahamo's sense that if no one else needed to see it, it didn't need to be neat. The closet was still open, but DG had taken great care to arrange the dresses so that they would not get wrinkled after she had chosen her current gown. And the wall over the bed…

Ahamo walked forward slowly. The journal entry he had read so recently was playing in his head again—_The first will be like her, but the second will be like me…_ All these drawings… _like me… _There was Ahamo walking Az to her room that first night after the witch was destroyed; there were Raw and Kalm, busy at the lessons the older viewer had recently started giving the younger… there was Cain, running drills with the palace guard as he had already agreed to do, even without agreeing to the position with the Guard that Lemuela had offered him…

And there was the drawing that had featured in his latest seeing: a familiar boy hurling himself off the third-floor castle balcony at ten o'clock on the night of the half-full moon—tonight.

"DG, let me help you with that," Ahamo said, turning away from the drawings. He looked in the jewelry box and found a necklace of a fine gold chain with gold half-moons framing a delicate woven gold heart and a ring that had gold chains trailing back to a matching bracelet. He helped DG fasten the clasp and arrange the ring's chains.

"You're a very good artist," he remarked casually. "Where do you get your inspiration?"

"I used to draw my dreams," DG said softly. "Now I draw what I see… but I don't know where or when I see it."

Ahamo smiled at his daughter in the mirror. "Well, Musa smiles on you, my dear **(3)**," he said. DG smiled back, turning to face him. "I don't know how else you could have gotten it—I'm certainly no artist, and as wonderfully as your mother can invoke emotions with a few abstract brushstrokes, she's no talent for drawing realistically." He kissed her hand gently. "You look beautiful," he told her. "Come; let's go see your mother."

* * *

Lemuela and Az joined them for breakfast in the smallest dining room. DG was still dazed at the idea of eating in a place where the cutlery was silver and the table had a lace tablecloth over a silver one, but the taste of the food never failed to bring her out of her shock and wake the bright and cheerful girl who had rejoined her family.

This particular day, the topic of conversation was the upcoming presentation of DG and Az to the O.Z. Lemuela was determined to tell DG everything she might need to know, and DG was an attentive listener.

Or at least, she was for about half an hour.

At that point, DG looked up from her meal and through the glass windows to the city beyond. Her fork froze on its path to her mouth. One hand rose slowly and traced a straight line down through the air.

Following her gaze, Ahamo almost choked on his omelet. The suns were approaching a line with the clock tower, a line that would be perpendicular to the horizon. It was a pattern that formed maybe once every fifty-two days.

And it had featured in another of DG's drawings.

DG stood up slowly, as though in the same trance that had taken over when she had drawn the boy who would jump that night. Slowly and silently, she walked out to the doors. Pushing them open as though brushing aside a cobweb, she stepped out onto the balcony, walked up to the edge, then turned and bent back over the railing to look up.

"What are you doing?" she called. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried easily.

Ahamo ran out to the balcony and looked up where DG was looking. "Oh, Menystar **(4)**," he whispered.

Lemuela and Az came out onto the balcony as the man responded. "I've only got one chance," he shouted, "and this is it!"

The man was tall and sturdy, with olive skin and close-cropped black hair. He had climbed to the top of the highest tower in the palace, and now stood ready to jump.

"Why don't you take your chance and live?" DG suggested.

The man laughed harshly. "I can't do that," he called down. "All that would keep me alive is hope that I wouldn't be caught, and hope never kept anyone alive for long. If I got caught…" He let the sentence trail off.

"Come down and let's talk about this," Lemuela said.

The man's laugh became a cackle. "_Talk?_" he shrieked. "You think we can just _talk?_ Lady, the time for talk is long past!"

And without another word, he threw himself off the tower, passing them on the balcony just as the suns and the tower formed that perfect line.

Az was breathing heavily. Not looking at her sister or her parents, she turned and ran from the balcony, DG only a few steps behind her.

Hurtling down the corridors and staircases, Az bit down on her hand to keep from screaming aloud. This man was only the first—there would be more soon, if she didn't stop this insanity. She had to do it. Lemuela would agree, if only to prevent war.

Az grabbed a railing and threw herself around it. There were the doors to the city outside; she needed only a moment to shove the heavy wood open and slip through.

Hand already coming out of her mouth and reaching for her belt, Az approached the man who had jumped and knelt beside him, turning him over none too gently.

"What in Siete's name were you thinking, idiot **(5)**?" she growled.

The man looked at her and laughed. "Siete's people are out of luck, Az-sama," he rasped through a broken throat and smashed jaw. There was no inch of his body that was not broken and covered in blood. "Your mother is on the throne again, and she… _disapproves…_ of our ways."

"My mother is a hypocrite," Az hissed. "And you're an idiot. It'll still take you days to die this way."

"'Course it will." The man didn't seem at all concerned by the idea. "But that's not the point, is it? The point is that they'll just let me die." He stared at her with one glittering eye. "Better than starvation," he said wickedly. "Which is what you're in for, _Sorceress._ You brought this on all of us."

Az closed her eyes and pulled out the knife she kept at her back. "I'm sorry," she told him, opening her eyes and positioning the broad blade over his heart. "I'm so sorry."

She lifted the knife. As DG, her closest pursuer, made it through the door, Az brought the knife down into the man's heart and twisted it.

The man gasped once. Then his head turned loosely away, his jaw grew slack, and his body went limp.

"I'm sorry," Az whispered again. She let go of the knife as though it had turned into a spider and then, as if not knowing what else to do with her hands, fisted them in her hair. Tears welled in her eyes. "Oh, Siete, I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"

DG was the first to step forward. She knelt beside her sister and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. "It's okay, Az… I'm here… It'll be okay…"

Az turned into her little sister. Ahamo and Lemuela emerged from the palace in time to see Az grip DG tightly, making her hair and the skirt of her gown tremble with her sobs.

* * *

"He was a general." Az's voice was hollow. "He was one of the first generals to join my… the Sorceress' army."

The family had gathered in a sitting room on the second floor, accompanied by DG's former companions and Raw's young student. The sisters sat on a loveseat** (6)**, DG's arm still around Az's shoulders. Az had stopped crying, but her eyes were red and her hands still shook.

"Why did he jump?" Lemuela asked. She and Ahamo sat on a couch across from the girls, and Lemuela clearly had many questions to ask.

"He preferred a potentially more painful death to a more drawn-out one," Az said, eyes fixed on the carpet.

"The death penalty is rarely employed," Ambrose protested from his position beside the queen, "and it is always as quick and painless as magically possible."

"He would have died in prison," Az said. Preempting any more questions, she lifted her eyes to Lemuela's and explained, "He was Inanima."

Cain jerked. "_What?_" he almost shouted. Ambrose's distant, aristocratic mask broke and he stared in horror. Lemuela wore an expression somewhere between shock and disgust. Raw was speaking softly to Kalm, apparently trying to calm him down **(7)**. DG just looked confused. Only Ahamo was unaffected.

"Umm…" DG asked hesitantly. "Maybe this is a stupid question, but… what's an Inanima?"

Those who were natives of the O.Z. seemed to think it was ridiculous that DG didn't know the answer to that question. Ahamo, on the other hand, answered immediately, "They're vampires."

DG stared at him. "Vampires? You're serious?"

"Well, they don't drink blood," Az said. "They drink life force. They just… open the victim's mouth and drain them dry." Her eyes had fixed on Lemuela.

"Some Inanimae have learned to subsist on other food sources," Lemuela interjected.

"And they slowly grow weaker," Az added. "They lose their strength faster; they get hungry faster; they feel more pain from their hunger…"

"So as the Sorceress, you used Inanimae in your army," Lemuela stated.

"Many," Az answered. "How did you think we raised such a large army? There are not that many malcontents in the O.Z. Most of the army came from the Empire."

"The what?" DG asked.

"The Empire on the Edge **(8)**," Az answered, turning to face her sister. "It's the original home of the Inanimae." Looking over at her mother again, she said, "When we took over, about a third of our generals and half the seconds-in-command were Inanimae, as well as a fair number of soldiers. The number of Inanimae generals rose over time. Eventually…" Az hesitated, glancing at Cain, before she returned her eyes to the floor and finished softly, "eventually we made the tin suits as a way to keep control of the Inanimae generals."

"How does that give you control?" Cain sounded distant, genuinely curious.

"The suits provide everything the human body needs. The spellwork on them will prevent a human from dying. But they don't provide anything an Inanima needs. Inanimae suffer a slow death by starvation in those suits." Az's voice had dropped to a whisper.

Lemuela drew a breath. "Well," she said, "this will take some thought. Inanimae… I never wanted to have to deal with _that_ diplomatic mess." She looked up at Az again. "You killed him, though. A mercy killing?"

Az nodded. "Death by fatal injury is slow enough, and incredibly painful. The only ways to kill an Inanima instantly are by removing the head or destroying the heart." She shuddered slightly, and DG embraced her tightly.

Lemuela seemed to have asked all her questions, so the meeting was dismissed to allow the family to return to their business and the others to return to their jobs.

* * *

Ambrose emerged from his lab at the end of the day wearing a satisfied smile. Even in the half-a-man's "glitching" brain, Ambrose's mind was as sharp as ever, and he'd had a very productive day.

Halfway down the hall, Ambrose ran into someone he wanted to see almost as much as he wanted to see Cain.

"Glitch," Raw said in greeting.

Ambrose didn't bother to correct him. Experience had taught him that if a viewer decided to call you something, there was no point in trying to correct them.

"Raw," he replied with a smile that was a little less polite than the one he gave his coworkers.

"Glitch sad," Raw said, staring unblinkingly into Ambrose's eyes.

Ambrose's heart pounded once as he wondered briefly what would happen if the viewer knew about the half, if he were to tell the Queen.

"I'm fine, actually," Ambrose said, smile never wavering. He started to move past the viewer.

Raw blocked his path. "Glitch should talk to DG," he said, eyes boring holes into Ambrose's.

Ambrose rolled his eyes skyward. "Of course I will," he assured the viewer. "Excuse me."

Raw let him go this time. He could feel someone else present—Cain. The Tin Man radiated suspicion and, more interestingly, jealousy. Raw wondered if the man had figured out what that second emotion was and why he felt it now, when Raw pushed Glitch toward DG.

* * *

Cain returned to his room to find Jeb waiting for him.

"The Queen came to speak to me about the Royal Guard today," Jeb said without preamble.

"Uh-huh," Cain said, hanging up his coat by the door.

"Why didn't you just say yes?" Jeb asked. "You were a Tin Man before. The Royal Guard is a step up—a step you're more than qualified for."

Cain turned back to face his son. "And?"

"Dad, I grew up with you." Jeb's expression was serious and a little confused. "I learned pretty much everything I know about fighting, strategy, tactics—everything that was ever useful to me in the Resistance was stuff I learned from you. You're the best."

"Is this going somewhere?" Cain asked.

"The O.Z. is in chaos," Jeb said slowly. "The Queen can't wait for you to say yes."

"She asked you." It wasn't a question.

"I don't want to lead again," Jeb said. "I told her no. I'd be happy to join the Royal Guard, but I don't want to command. I told her you should have the position. But… she can only wait two more days for an answer."

Cain sighed. "Why do you think I'm going to change my mind?" he demanded.

"Because this has always been your life," Jeb answered. "Weird as it might seem, you always liked that life. And I don't think you really want to say no."

He stood and headed for the door. "I'd talk to her tomorrow, if I were you," he said. Pausing at the door, he said quickly, "Good night, Dad."

By the time Cain processed that last sentence, Jeb had left.

* * *

Az's steps were silent as she ghosted through the halls. She had sat shaking on her bed long enough. It was time to prove, one way or another, whether she had a chance of living in this new O.Z.

The flight of steps leading down to the prisons was still clear of dust from the Sorceress' reign. Az opened the door, taking out the key in her sash as she headed down the stairs.

It was easy for her to see which of the prisoners she might choose from. The Inanimae already sat limp and trembling, their strength failing in a place where breathing gave them little extra life. The human soldiers of the Sorceress' army came to the bars and called to Az for help, as though like everyone else in the O.Z. they still believed her wicked.

Az ignored them, walking along until she saw a human who looked suitable. Fitting her key into the lock, she reached out and grabbed his collar, dragging him out and locking his cell again.

"We're going for a walk," she told him. She slipped the key back into her sash, clamped a hand over his mouth to keep him from screaming, and began leading him out of the dungeon.

* * *

Ahamo lay wide awake next to his wife. Lemuela had fallen asleep almost instantly, leaving Ahamo to ponder what he had seen in DG's room.

Common sense said to stay out of it. What DG drew, what he wrote… they represented what was _supposed_ to happen. He had no business interfering.

But to leave that boy to fall… It didn't feel right. He'd never obeyed the rules before; why should he start now?

Careful not to wake Lemuela, Ahamo slipped out of bed and silently got dressed before leaving the room. He would _not_ let that drawing come true.

* * *

**(1) **Because I couldn't bear to change Glitch's awesome hair.

**(2)** To be clear, I don't think the O.Z. is hetero-normative. I'm not sure what their stance is, but they aren't as a society homophobic. Ambrose isn't a homophobe; that's not what he means. He means that Cain is a real person, and Glitch is an unnatural half-a-person, and Cain shouldn't care about Glitch.

**(3)** Musa is Latin for Muse, as in the nine Muses of ancient Greek mythology. In ADKOS, she's the O.Z. goddess of inspiration.

**(4)** Menystar is a being who exists outside of space and time. He is mine; I made him for a different story. In this story, he's the god who controls the passageways between Earth and the O.Z. People who travel from one to the other often invoke him as their main god.

**(5)** Siete does not belong to me; he is the first vampire in Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' books. In ADKOS, he's the main Inanima god.

**(6)** I'm not hinting at anything; what are you talking about?

**(7) **No pun intended.

**(8)** The Edge (and the Empire, and the Inanimae) are my inventions. The Edge is a forested mountain range that encircles the O.Z. and the surrounding countries. It marks the edge of the known world because no one can get through on account of all the hungry Inanimae living there.


End file.
